Get Out of Jail Free Card
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Usopp’s birthday just so happens to coincide with a day full of goodnatured fun.


**Title:** Get Out of Jail Free Card  
**Universe:** One Piece  
**Theme/Topic:** Usopp's birthday pranks  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Strawhats  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** UM for Enies Lobby I guess. Sort of.  
**Word Count: **1,690  
**Summary:** Usopp's birthday just so happens to coincide with a day full of good-natured fun.  
**Dedication:** nekovampyre's request for OPX7! I hope this is at least marginally entertaining.  
**A/N:** UHM. I'm not funny. LOL Just saying that right out, 'kay?  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

It all began with a quick exchange of shampoo for super glue while Luffy was in the shower, and hahahaha wasn't it funny when senchou-san's hands got stuck in his head and he ran around slamming his elbows into doorways thinking he'd gotten attacked by a random hands-stuck-to-your-head curse?

Usopp paid for that one later though, after Nami had to give their fretting captain an impromptu haircut and afterwards, left him to run around deck with the furriest palms of all time. Luffy (now sporting a hairstyle that made him look a bit like a lopsided dandelion) thus proceeded to chase after the sharpshooter, and upon tackling him to the ground, mercilessly tickled Usopp into nearly pissing his pants with the flats of both hair-covered hands.

Both somehow hysterical and disgusting at the same time.

After that the nature of what it meant for Usopp's birthday to fall on this particular day was elucidated to the captain in an appropriately grandeur manner, and Luffy, touched by the sentiment, forgot about the whole hands-stuck-to-his-head thing and declared that pranks were definitely the best things ever.

"We have to do more!" he announced in all seriousness, now completely in the spirit of April Fool's Day (hairy palms and all).

"Definitely more!" Usopp approved, and pointed up at the sky rather dramatically. "Today, we will be the kings of practical jokes!"

"Yay!" Luffy cheered, and suggested that for their first prank they trick the fridge into thinking it was full and at the very last minute, empty it out when it was least expecting it. "I bet that'll really surprise it!"

"Uh, maybe not," Usopp said, after staring at his captain for a bit.

Luffy shrugged, undaunted. "We can do that one later!"

"Later!" Usopp agreed, and struck his dramatic pose again. "First! Zoro!"

"Zoro!" Luffy echoed, and mirrored Usopp's dramatic pose with him.

The two snickered and darted off.

A little while later, Zoro got a pair of wide, surprised-looking pupils drawn onto the tops of his eyelids with Usopp's permanent marker while the swordsman was taking his daily afternoon nap in the middle of the deck.

Somehow it was simultaneously the funniest and stupidest thing of all time.

Probably because Roronoa Zoro was not in the habit of looking _that _surprised _ever._

It was especially funny however, after Zoro woke up sometime later, the swordsman promptly slouching into the galley to steal a snack and bother the cook some.

Sanji, upon seeing the swordsman, promptly spit out the cigarette that was in his mouth, the action making a strange sort of popping noise as he stared at Zoro for a moment.

Zoro blinked.

Which was _hysterical, _and made the chefstart laughing rather emphatically at the big idiot's face, the blond actually pointing and chortling, "Your face!" over and over again because he couldn't get much more than that out before he dissolved into another fit of helpless guffaws.

Needless to say things only deteriorated from there (Zoro got that angry Vee in between his eyebrows and said some things about _Sanji's _face in return), and while the chef and the swordsman were too busy trying to throttle each other to notice, Luffy went ahead with the whole fridge prank idea and tricked the poor appliance good and solid.

To be fair, it never really had a chance anyway.

After that it was a simple matter of rearranging the chef's measuring spoon collection out of order and making off once their nefarious deed was done, all the while trying to subdue their giggles amidst the chef and first mate's rather awesome quarrel.

"We're so good at this!" Luffy declared once they were in the clear. "Who next, who next?"

Usopp looked thoughtful. "Mmmm, how about Nami?"

A beat.

Luffy stared. "Ne, Usopp, who next?" he asked again, when no one said anything.

"Right," Usopp coughed, and cleared his throat as if the thought of Nami had never come up. "Robin?"

_That _particular idea just reminded them both of the last time they'd accidentally crossed her (a ketchup boshi grazing the corner of one of her books during a game of impromptu paintball), and how the whole afternoon had ended with the both of them enduring the rather unpleasant experience of having their asses kicked (from the third foot that had suddenly sprouted out of their backs) for hours afterwards.

A moment.

And then, "Frankie," they both agreed, happily.

That afternoon, they discovered that when his cola bottles were replaced with Sanji's famous blend of breakfast tea, their half-cyborg friend spoke with a very pleasant English accent.

However, in retrospect, they decided that the espresso experiment after that had been a bad idea.

After finally outrunning a jittery Frankie Centaur stampede by way of the crow's nest, Chopper was all that remained, and Usopp declared rather confidently, that this one would definitely be a piece of cake.

Which got Luffy's mind sidetracking to cake for a good fifteen minutes, but after shaking his captain back to the task at hand, the two made their way down to the doctor's little laboratory, hands stretched out in front of them as they moaned and groaned rather impressively.

"Chopper!!" they cried, and staggered forward, collapsing on the reindeer's floor.

"Help!" Luffy begged.

Chopper stared, wide-eyed for a moment.

And then broke out into a panic. "Oh my god what's wrong? What's wrong? Where does it hurt? Are you dying?! DOCTOR! I NEED A DOCTOR!"

"It's the Zombie disease!" Usopp wailed, clutching his stomach in pain. "We've got the zombie disease!" Pause. "AND YOU'RE THE DOCTOR."

"Oh! Right! Um… I don't know that one!" Chopper shouted, and dove for his bookshelf.

"We're going to turn into monsters who want to eat braaaiiinsss!!" Usopp told him, before curling over himself dramatically. "Oh, I can feel the hunger already! It hurts!! The hunger!!!!"

"Cake!" Luffy moaned, alongside him.

Usopp smacked him.

"Brains!" Luffy, corrected, though he really was still thinking about cake. "Braaaiiiinsss!"

"Oh my god!" Chopper screamed, and ran around with his arms in the air. "It's not in my book!"

It couldn't have gone more according to plan. Well, maybe it could have if only Luffy had stuck to moaning "brains" and hadn't switched to "meat" a few wails ago, but Chopper was too keyed up too notice anyway.

Hilarious.

But just when Usopp was about ready to scream, "Gotcha, April Fool's!" so he could stop the charade and burst out laughing appropriately, a sudden pain in his arm froze him. "Er…Chopper?" he asked, and immediately felt himself getting sleepy.

"Don't worry, I'll save you!" Chopper promised—teary-eyed—as he held what looked to be a big damn needle full of a murky, viscous liquid. "Just rest well, okay, Usopp? Okay?"

"Er…" Usopp began, and couldn't quite form the appropriate words of distress as he lost all will to move at all.

"Luffy, stay still!" were the last words he heard before he passed out.

When he came to sometime later, everyone was gathered around his bed, and blinking blearily, he thought he saw a…

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" the crew declared all at once, as Sanji held a nice big chocolate cake out to him.

"It came out a bit bigger than I'd planned," the chef admitted, with a bit of a sideways smile that Usopp could only assume was good-natured (even if it didn't _feel _that way).

"You're not a zombie!!!" Chopper wailed in relief, earning himself a consoling pat from Robin.

"Very good, old chap," Frankie felt the need to add (which led Usopp to believe that the coffee had finally worked its way out of his system, as he wasn't calling everyone and their mother a wanker anymore).

And, the sharpshooter noted, every time Zoro blinked, he looked very, very emphatic about his wishes for Usopp to have a happy birthday.

Usopp—despite the residual grogginess— immediately felt his heart swell in his chest at the sight of them all gathered thusly for his birthday. "Everyone!" he declared, "I'm so touched by your sentiments on this day, the great Usopp-sama's very important birthday! Your celebratory congratulations and your presents are all very much appreciated!"

That said, he blew out the candles on the cake, made a wish, and promptly waited for his presents.

A moment.

"Where are the presents?" he said, when they didn't come right away.

Nami grinned at him and raised her hand first. "No charge for the haircut I had to give Luffy because of you today!"

Sanji next, and after he spoke, that little grin from earlier made absolute sense. "I made cake. But for some reason it turned out a little bit salty."

Then Robin. "I managed to get the double shot out of Frankie-san's system earlier. Happy birthday, nagahana-kun."

"From both of us, old boy," Frankie added, charmingly.

"I didn't slit your throat when you tried sneaking up on me while I was sleeping," Zoro offered, though he still sounded kind of irate. Probably the permanent ink talking.

"I _cured_ you!" Chopper announced. "I don't know how, but you're not zombies!"

"Here, Usopp!" Luffy added, and for the big gift-giving finale, held out a shiny rock in his hairy, hairy palm. "Happy birthday!"

Usopp stared at them.

Gauged the general aura of _menace _emanating off of most of them.

And then, with his index finger dramatically raised in the air, declared, "That's fair."

All smiles again. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USOPP!" they repeated, and as he—the great and mighty Usopp-sama— had known all along, the best birthday present in life was to get the coveted get out of jail free card that meant not-being-killed-by-your-friends-for-the-stupid-pranks-you-pulled-on-them-all-day (especially considering what he'd seen some of these people do to others for lesser offenses).

All in all, it was everything a great guy like him could ever ask for.

And as for the shiny rock? Well that… that was just icing on the salty, salty cake (that he was obligated to eat all of, apparently).

And so, he considered it a perfectly wonderful birthday.

And an even better April Fool's Day.

Even when Luffy insisted on hairy-hand-monster tickle-a-thons every day for a week afterwards.

**END**


End file.
